West Berkshire CAMRA Meet the Brewer Evening. Hall and Woodhouse of Blandford St Mary, Dorset

Mark Woodhouse, joint Managing Director of Hall & Woodhouse, presented a beer tasting evening at the Swan, Newtown, on 15 February. Twenty six beer enthusiasts from West Berkshire and North Hampshire enjoyed drinking a variety of the brewery’s beers and eating restaurant quality food while learning about the past, present and future of this independent Dorset based family brewery.

Mark Woodhouse pours out the next of the beers for sampling.

Mark said ‘Quality is sacrosanct’ and this includes employing two full time staff to visit the 230 Hall & Woodhouse pub four times a year. They conduct a full audit to ensure that everything in the public areas and behind the scenes is up to the highest standard. They also perform the typical Cask Marque checks on the beer quality.

Since 1777, the Badger brewery has been building up its collection of pubs which fall roughly between Dartmoor, Eastbourne, London and Weston-super-Mare. Nationwide, they have become the supermarkets’ biggest independent supplier of bottled beer. Unusually, Hall & Woodhouse do not supply beer to freehouses or other chains or sell guest ales in their own tied pubs. Mark explained that this policy allowed them to guarantee beer quality.

The beer tasting started off with a draught Badger beer, chosen at the bar on arrival. The first bottled beer to be formally tasted by our group was Stinger which was originally developed with nettles picked at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage. Neal’s Yard now supply the extract of nettle which gives the beer its fresh aroma. Golden Glory, with a peach blossom aroma, was the beer chosen to accompany the appetising food which staff delivered fresh from the kitchen. Mark dealt with some questions while we relished the food and emptied our glasses. Hopping Hare, normally served in an etched, stemmed glass, was our next treat. This is now initially hopped with First Gold and later with Cascade in both the conditioning tank and as a dry hop finish. ‘The best beer and food combination in the world’ is how Mark described Blandford Fly with Dorset Blue Vinney. A big chunk of the creamy cheese certainly did go well with the subtle ginger flavour of this sweetish beer. Poacher’s Choice was the full flavoured beer to finish and as with the previous beer, Mark called it ‘chutney in a bottle’. We agreed it would be a good beer to drink late at night with some blue cheese. This strong dark beer has added flavours of ripe damsons and liquorice.

A great turn out of CAMRA members enjoying the ranger of beers.

Mark admitted that the brewery was keen to encourage a bigger overall market for ale by brewing distinctive beers that might appeal to men who would otherwise drink lager and women who would otherwise drink wine. Amusingly, Mark was frequently disparaging of the wine trade and explained ‘I only drink beer, I don’t drink anything else!’ He explained that a big investment is now transforming the brewery. This will provide more brewing flexibility to cope with the future market, whatever its size.

Adrian Bean rounded off the evening by thanking Mark Woodhouse for the successful event and then presented the Swan’s staff with a donation raised from those attending.

This article is a copy which appeared in the Mar/Apr 2011 edition of Ullage - Many thanks to editor Tim Thomas for the words and pictures.